


Hawke's Day at the Beach

by SaraWinters



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Heavy Angst, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 01:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15853224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraWinters/pseuds/SaraWinters
Summary: An escape. That was all Hawke needed. But would the time away really be enough to sort through the mess her life had become?Rated for innuendo.





	Hawke's Day at the Beach

“Are you feeling all right?” Varric adjusted the crossbow on his back and stared at Hawke across the room, as if she were slowly losing her mind and he was fearful of approaching her.

In truth, Marian felt as if she were losing her mind. A few more days in this town where murder was as common as spring rain and she would go mad. As it was, between her friends fighting and the war she could feel coming in her bones, she needed this. She couldn't say all that out loud, of course. Varric would put it down to “some weird magic shit” and tell her to listen to reason or something else completely unhelpful. She had braced herself for his lecture before coming to the Hanged Man. Between the two of them, who else would keep the city from tearing itself apart?

“Of course I'm not,” Hawke replied. “That's the whole point. A vacation was your idea, remember?”

“Yes, I made that crack about you visiting a beach, but I didn't mean for you to just take off.” Varric glanced around. No one had approached the door to his suite. They were blessedly alone, if only for a few precious moments. “The city needs you, Hawke. You can't just disappear for parts unknown.”

“The city needs someone sane to run it. The Viscount is in mourning, but Seneschal Bran is stamping all the right paperwork to keep the city going. Aveline and the City Guard have the rest taken care of. Unless Meredith starts killing mages in the streets, I think Kirkwall is as stable as it's going to get. Besides, I'm no good to anyone when I'm liable to snap a Templar's neck just for looking at me wrong.”

Varric looked like he wanted to argue for a moment then decided against it. Good. Hawke was in no mood to argue with the dwarf.

“Considering that Kirkwall's most famous apostate killing a Templar would make Meredith order a manhunt, perhaps you're right. Some time off would do you good.” He drummed a hand on the table, his eyes dropping from Hawke's. “The elf going with you?”

“I don't know why you can't just use his name, Varric.” Hawke caught that small guilty look before Varric returned to his usual stoic expression. “No. Fenris and I...no.” She swallowed hard. 

The river of blood running through Kirkwall's streets wasn't the only thing she was trying to escape. Even the distance of a remote shore wouldn't be enough to get what happened between them out of her mind. She didn't know what might, and for a while she had torn through the dark streets, staff in hand, hoping the growing pile of dead thieves and murderers would bring her solace. And it would work, for a time. Until she returned home and the cold emptiness of her bed kept her awake through the small hours. Some nights, she even imagined she could still smell him on her sheets, hear the little sounds he'd made when she'd surprised him, made him forget himself. Then she would shake off her melancholy, don her robes and go out in search of a new distraction, however pointless. 

A few weeks of trying to shake him from her system had driven most gangs far underground, achieving what passed for a lull in the chaos of Kirkwall's nights. So Marian talked herself into going to the beach. She could pretend it was a vacation, but looking at Varric, she could tell the lie wasn't fooling him. She wasn't going to try to convince him. Kirkwall might need someone to hold down the crazy, but Hawke needed to take care of herself.

Varric's eyes held hers for a long moment before he looked away. “That's too bad. I think you could use the time to...sort things out.”

_I think things were well sorted when he walked out_ , Hawke thought. Out loud, she said nothing. What was there to say? His demons tore at him as much as Merrill's enticed her. Even Hawke wasn't powerful enough to overcome a lifetime of memories flooding back. It had hurt at the time, but she knew she would've been overwhelmed had she been in his place.

“I'd appreciate you looking in on the house a couple of times,” Hawke said. “Bodahn knows I trust you, but Isabela keep inviting herself over when I'm not home. I don't know how she keeps letting herself in.”

“Loose lock at the servant's entrance.” Varric took a step back at Hawke's glare. “Sorry. I'll uh...have someone fix it while you're away. Though that won't guarantee she won't just pick it. Or use a different door.”

Hawke frowned. “One of these days, Isabela's habit of taking liberties with other people's property is going to bite her in the ass. I can't say I'll be sorry to see that day.” Hawke shook her hand to cool it. It had been a long time since she'd been so angry sparks of magic flew from her fingers. “Thank you for looking in on the house. I'll try not to be gone longer than a month.”

Before Varric could form a response to that, Hawke picked up her pack and headed down the stairs. She forced herself not to cast a glamour of invisibility. She wasn't running away and she certainly wasn't hiding from anyone in the Lowtown tavern.

She'd made it to the edge of town before she thought she heard her name in the distance. Faint, at first. Then distinct. Urgent. Desperate. She was invisible before she could take her next breath. Some might call her a coward. Perhaps. But she was a coward who wasn't going to get sucked back in. Not today.

***

A week of staring at waves and feeling warm breezes from across the water had taught Hawke two things. The first, that she was entirely too easily bored. She felt like she'd go mad from the neverending silence the first night. Her hometown had been small, but she'd hardly found Lothering quiet with her younger brother and sister constantly underfoot. Kirkwall was never silent and she'd gotten used to the sounds of merchants calling and crowds filling the streets during the day and whores and beggars singing the city to sleep at night. It was disconcerting to suddenly be free of all that.

The second thing she'd discovered was that without all the madness of Kirkwall—people depending on her, demanding her assistance, keeping everyone together but herself—she had time to simply be. So she'd slept for two days straight. Woke long enough to eat then slept again. Then she meditated on the last four years, from their frantic escape from the Blight, to losing her mother to that monster, to hearing the story behind her father's foray into blood magic. Then she cried for all the things she'd lost. Father. Her home. Bethany. Carver. Fenris. Mother. Her sense of self.

Was that the worst of all, then? That after losing everyone she loved, Marian felt like she'd died herself. Some days she was nothing more than an empty shell, going through the motions. Bodahn had to remind her to eat half the time. She had to remind herself there was more to life than having someone to share it with. That her big house in Hightown wasn't filled the ghost of her regrets. A lie that barely allowed her to function, if one could call her life that. But it was something. Perhaps if she lied to herself often enough, it would become truth. She could put her heart back together and start over.

Early afternoon of the eighth day, Hawke woke with a start. The glamour around her tent had worn off and she hastily reapplied it. Not that the bit of magic would completely shield her if anyone spotted the ashes from the previous night's fire. Still, it would do until she found out what was in the rushes nearby. She checked around for her staff, eyes bleary from sleep. Blinking hard, she pinched herself on both cheeks and emerged from the tent.

The glamour cloaked her as she took steps towards the bluff rising to the left. Tall reeds shifted in the breeze, then brushed together again more harshly as something walked through them. Hawke gripped her staff and aimed as whatever it was came closer. She wouldn't kill unless she had to, but she wasn't going to take a chance on appearing defenseless.  
The reeds parted and he stumbled out, swearing in Tevene and batting at the plants that clumped around him. Fenris stepped away from the thick growth and glanced around himself as he brushed off his arms.

Hawke lifted her glamour and stalked forward, not sure if she was relieved or alarmed that he'd managed to find her here, of all places. “What the...how are you here?”

Fenris jumped as she approached, then visibly relaxed. He motioned to the plants behind him. “You're a hard woman to track, Hawke.”

“That was on purpose.” She'd grown the plants to block her tent on a whim, but clearly she hadn't covered her tracks well enough before reaching the island. “Why are you here?”

“I...it's hard to explain.”

“You had better try.” Hawke pulled her staff to her side, relaxing her grip on it. “How did you know where I was?”

“Varric.” Fenris offered a sheepish half-smile. “Before you get mad, I had to practically threaten him before he would tell me you'd gone anywhere. And Bodahn showed me the maps you were looking at last week.”

“Are you trying to get him fired?”

“I told...I told him we were to meet privately, but I'd forgotten the spot you'd marked on the map. I suppose he remembered when I...spent time at the estate.”

Yes, he'd remembered the night he'd walked in on Hawke and Fenris kissing frantically and undressing in the front hall before giggling their way upstairs. Bodahn probably assumed they were meeting elsewhere to spare him the embarrassment of seeing or hearing what was going on. Not that he'd ever be crass enough to say anything.

“All that to track me here? Why?” Hawke asked again.

“I needed to see you.” His voice was faint, but Hawke didn't ask for him to repeat it. Not when the pleading look in his eyes stole the breath from her lungs. “I know you needed some time to yourself, after everything that's happened.”

A thousand unvoiced thoughts passed between them with those words and Hawke felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease. She wasn't alone in her regrets for what happened between them. And all the things that didn't happen. The yearning that ate at her peace of mind. She longed to cross the chasm between them and fix everything without words, but she waited. He needed to speak. He needed to fix his decision to run away. She couldn't do the work for him.

“I wanted to do more, to explain better, but I couldn't. There was just so much—” He broke off and the look he gave her pleaded for her to break in, give him relief from what was clearly agonizing.  
Hawked turned and stared out at the open water. Away from the gaze that threatened to break her heart again if she would let it. Let him. Allow herself to be vulnerable again when that had brought nothing but heartache.

“I shouldn't have left you that night. I'm sorry.”

Words she had been longing to hear for months, but that did very little to ease the sudden sharp ache in her chest.

“It wasn't just having my memories back, only to have them taken away again. It was knowing that you could unravel me so, without trying.” Fenris was at her back now, whispering his explanation into the tender place at the back of her neck. His arms came around her and his lips brushed that place, branding her. She was his.

“As long as I've known you, you have been brave. Strong. Capable of handling things no one person should have to deal with. I have envied you,” he said, voice dropping even lower. “For all my strengths, I am weakest when I think of who I was back then, how I was used, how I was hurt. You gave me the strength to confront a part of my past and I ran away from you when it got too hard. And I could not do enough to help you when you needed it most.”

Hawke shuddered but didn't respond. She would not forget the night Leandra died for the rest of her years, but it had helped that Fenris had come, if only for a few moments. They'd all been adrift the night her mother died. Hawke squeezed his hand and he continued.

“I'm sorry. For everything I can't be for you. For...for letting my cowardice control me that night. For not telling you how much I love you that night and every night after.”

Hawke turned in his arms and found his lips with hers. Before common sense and regrets and fears could get in the way, she let go, allowing her inhibitions and clothes to fall away with the warm ocean breeze. After, they lay in her tent and watched the sun set over the water, the warm oranges and pinks filling the sky.

“How was it this time?” Hawke asked.

“You are always perfect,” Fenris responded. His kiss was tender, teasing. His hand under the blanket the same. “Shall we make up for lost time?”

Hawke responded by opening to him. She would never tire of losing herself this way.

***

Hawke debated knocking on the clinic door, but thought better of it. The lamp was lit, as always, but she'd gotten back late and she didn't want to wake Anders with a frantic rant in the late hours. The debate was ended when she heard him call out, “Come in.”

Hawke didn't ask how he'd known she was outside. The glow of the spell had barely faded from Anders's hands before he motioned her across the room. He was looking more pale than usual, she noted, and the light from the candles made the circles under his eyes appear darker.

“I hear you went to the beach,” Anders began. Hawke wondered if Varric had gotten posters printed up. She'd had no less than three people ask her about her trip since coming back to town. “While you were gone, did you happen to...?”

“Try out your gift?” Hawke supplied. She slipped the vial out of her pocket and placed it on the exam table. The swirling purple contents glowed faintly. “It was...I don't think you should sell it. Frankly, it's dangerous.”

Anders smiled and lifted the vial. He noted how much she'd used. “The visions are vivid, aren't they?”

Hawke closed her eyes and briefly felt Fenris's lips on the back of her neck. His hands on her thighs. Other places. She opened her eyes and shook her head. “Yes, they are. Too much so. This could be dangerous in the wrong hands. Addictive.” Especially for people who needed to escape their life as much as Hawke did. She folded her arms across her chest to stop herself from snatching the vial back.

“I admit the potion is strong, but I thought it might be a good way for people to escape. Kirkwall can be such a dark place, you know.”

And giving people their greatest fantasy in a bottle would bring the city to a standstill. Everyone would escape. No one would want to live in this world anymore. 

“I do know, better than anyone,” Hawke whispered. “But you should be careful. The mages of Kirkwall have enough trouble without a potion this powerful hitting the market. It's not blood magic, but it is capable of manipulating thoughts.”

“I'll be careful, don't worry. Meredith isn't going to take me down over this,” Anders said, lifting the vial before slipping it into the pocket of his robes. “But, did it help you? You wanted to relax.”

“It helped some,” Hawke said. “I had a vision of what I want, but not how to get it.” And a broken heart once the potion wore off and she woke up in the dark of her tent, dreams of lovemaking teasing at the edge of her consciousness. The following morning had been anything but relaxing as she kept imagining footsteps in the nearby reeds or a voice calling to her on the soft wind. By midday, she'd had enough and had packed her belongings. Even her frantic walk home hadn't been enough to clear her head of the vision.

“I have to go,” she said abruptly. She lifted her pack higher on her shoulder. “But thank you for trying to help.” Anders's faint goodbye followed her out the door.

The noise of Hightown's night had faded to a dull roar by the time Hawke reached the door of her estate. She was fumbling in her pack for the door key when his voice called out for her.

“Where were you? I needed to see you.”

Hawke's hands dropped as Fenris emerged from the shadows and approached her. She forced her eyes to stay on his, trying to read his expression. That potion was dangerous, Hawke decided as he drew close. For all that she'd known she was remembering a fantasy, all she wanted now was for it to be real – perhaps a formula to predict the future rather than a way to escape one's horrible present. For now, all she could do was allow Fenris to speak. Time would tell if her fantasy would ever compare to reality.


End file.
